Chapter Twenty-Three
Emma
We did all the normal stuff he said, except for the sex. I think the amount of sex we had is abnormal. Not that I’m complaining. We sit at a continental breakfast in the morning, me with a bowl of cereal and him with what looks like the annual food supply of a small country. It is all healthy, though.
“You miss Theo.”
“How did you know I was thinking of him?”
“Just a hunch.”
“This is the longest I’ve been away from him, but he’s in good hands. I talked to Mac this morning. He’s doing well.”
“I’m sure he misses you, too.”
“Yeah,” he says, sipping a green concoction that he told me is a smoothie. But it is to a smoothie what ass is to ice cream.
“How is Faith?” I ask. I hadn’t had a chance to text Mac recently.
“She’s doing well. She almost got adopted yesterday.”
I sit up in my chair. “What happened?”
“We denied their application.”
“Really?”
“We have a vetting process. We do an application, interview, and a reference check. The last thing we want is to take a dog from a bad situation and put them in a worse one.”
“Why were they denied?”
“They had two dogs already and a really small house. That’s not an automatic denial, except they planned to keep Faith outside and they don’t have an insulated dog house. Also, Mac had a bad feeling about them. Some of this is intuition, too.”
I make little circles in my cereal. I dunk a corn puff, watching as it resurfaces through the milk. I’m happy Mac is so conscientious about adoptions, but in a twisted way I hope Faith never gets adopted. It’s selfish of me, but I love her. I want to take care of her. I want to make a home for her. Ridiculous, considering I have no home. I don’t even have a permanent address to put on an application.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, placing his hand on mine.
“It’s crazy.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“I was just thinking how much I want to adopt her.”
“That’s not crazy. You have a bond. You saved her life.”
I sit back in my chair. “We may have a bond, but I don’t have a place to bring her home to.”
“Emma?”
I pause before picking up my bowl. I don’t know what I want him to say. Although we’ve shared many beautiful moments, the truth is we just met. In any normal circumstances, we would go on a series of dates. We’d do movies and dinners and have long talks about our future. What we have is some kind of whirlwind thing going on, which is both exciting and scary. Right now, I am leaning toward the latter. The set of circumstances I find myself in would force, maybe even coerce, a commitment from him. That’s the last thing I want.
“I’m fine. Forget I said anything,” I say as I gather the garbage from the table.
“I’ll go check us out.”
“Thanks.”
Funny. Relief and anxiety at the same time feels a lot like heartburn. I’m waiting for Aiden in the hotel gift store when panic pays me a visit without the decency to call first. It seizes me in its grip when I stare at a tiny globe of the world. It’s the kind of object people keep on their desks for decoration. I spin it, realizing that the world might be my oyster, but who knows if that shell will have a pearl or something slimy inside? I have no prospects, and what appealed to me the other night has me scared shitless today.
“Hey,” Aiden says when he finds me, placing an arm on my shoulder. “We’re all set.”
I stiffen against his touch. “Great.”
“Are you okay, Cooper?”
“I was just thinking that I could close my eyes, spin this, point to a place, and move there.”
“Worst idea ever.”
“Why?”
“The world is mostly water. What if you land in the middle of the ocean?”
“I’ll spin again until I hit land. I’ll be an explorer.”
“Did you have some cocaine with your corn puffs this morning?”
“This is not a joke.” I am not a joke.
“What if you land in a foreign country?”
“I have a passport.” A passport and no prospects. He is right. I get that, but I feel lost. If I can just focus on a place where I can go, a piece of land, a goal that I can hurdle then I can aim for something.
“What are you going to do for money?”
“I have some.” I shrug. “I can figure it out as I go along. Maybe I’ll be one of those people who travels from place to place, doing good deeds along the way.”
“That’s not a job.”
“It could be.”
“It’s the premise for a TV show. It’s not a job.”
“I’ll figure it all out. Right now, I need a starting point.”
“Who can argue with that logic?” He gestures to the globe. His sarcasm and lack of support pushes me forward.
“Fine, I’m spinning.”
“Spin away, Cooper. Spin it to win it.”
I give it a decent turn. When I open my eyes, my index finger lands on…
Fuck me.
Aiden peers over my shoulder. I attempt to move my finger, but he clasps my wrist with his lighting quick reflexes. “Sudan, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Send me a postcard and make sure you pack plenty of sunscreen. The sun will burn a hole right through your skin.”
“You’re trying to scare me.”
“Yeah, ’cause the scariest thing about a young girl living in Sudan is the climate.”
“Says the man who goes to Pakistan on vacation. I’m spinning again.”
“Are you sure that’s allowed?” He gestures to the globe. “The great wheel has spoken. Your fate is sealed.”
“My game, my rules.” My screwed-up life, Aiden.
He crosses his arms and stands back.
This time I turn it harder. In fact, I bitch-slap the world with an open palm. It swivels fast then falls before my eyes. Right out of the brass clips holding it in place. It bounces a few times before it rolls down the carpeted aisle and finally clinks against the glass exit door. Someone opens the door at that moment, causing it to roll again, right back to me.
I have the world at my feet and all I want to do is stomp on it.